AI agent developer Manus raises $500M+ at reported $4B valuation

Manus, an artificial intelligence agent developer, has successfully raised over $500 million in funding, bringing its reported valuation to approximately $4 billion. The Chinese startup disclosed the round today, with private equity firm Boyu Capital leading the investment, supported by Tencent Holdings Ltd. and several other entities.

Bloomberg had previously reported that the deal was expected to value the company at $4 billion, double the amount Meta Platforms Inc. had reportedly offered for the company in December of the previous year.

Manus was initially launched as Butterfly Effect Co. Ltd. in 2022, with its first product being a browser extension that provided access to multiple AI models through a single interface. In 2024, the company raised $10 million and refocused on developing the product that later became the Manus agent. The agent was launched in March through an invite-only program, with its performance on users' computers going viral.

This attracted the interest of venture capital firm Benchmark, leading to a $75 million investment from the firm in April 2025 and the relocation of Manus' headquarters to Singapore.

Following Meta's attempted acquisition that fell through earlier this year, Manus announced its return as a standalone company. Since then, the software maker has been working on improving its product. Manus 2.0, the first major update since the company's relaunch, was released a few days before the funding announcement. It introduces a new harness, designed to customize the behavior of the underlying large language models (LLMs).

Manus 2.0 promises to reduce token use by 23.2% across certain tasks, while also speeding up processing by more than 28%. The update also includes a tool that allows consumers to generate clips and video games, alongside a feature called Cloud Computer. This service hosts AI-generated game backend code in a managed environment, enabling the running of other workloads, including websites and long-running tasks, even when the user's local machine is offline.

The third addition to Manus is Cue, which enables the equipping of AI agents with additional resources, such as an email account and digital wallet. Users can also create message boards for their Cue-powered agents, allowing them to collaborate on complex tasks. The company's funding milestone was announced on the same day that Nous Research Inc., a startup with a competing AI agent for consumers, raised $90 million.

Meta, for its part, has intensified its in-house AI agent development efforts following the fall of the Manus deal. This has resulted in the creation of an app called Muse, which has recently surpassed ChatGPT on the U.S. edition of the App Store.